Chapter 12
12
Caleb
When I head back to my room after the showcase, there’s an idea I can’t shake.
I have no desire to record a new album. That hasn’t changed. But the moment I’m alone, I start to rifle through my songwriting journals, knowing it’s here somewhere. Originally, I wasn’t going to bring them all to LA, but I tossed them in my suitcase last minute.
They’re so full of ink that it bleeds through the pages. Some are discarded or unfinished drafts from old writing sessions with the band, and some are my own two a.m. thoughts about almosts and could-have-beens. In one of the most battered books, I find the old collaborations, Valerie’s messy scrawl in her favorite purple ink mingled with my neater hand in blue.
I can’t stop thinking about them as I shower and change. Once I’ve cleaned up, I knock on the adjoining door to Valerie’s room.
After what feels like an eternity, it opens. She’s changed into an oversized white T-shirt and barely-there shorts. Her eyes are soft, her fading pink hair mussed, and I laugh.
“Were you asleep?”
She covers a yawn with her fist. “Just a power nap. Had to recover from today. What’s up?”
I wanted to present this in a very specific way, but I just blurt it out. “?‘Daydreams Like This.’?”
Her eyes widen, and she straightens a little, as if that woke her up. “What?”
“We should finish it.”
“Are you serious?” I know what she’s thinking—that’s the song we were working on right before we broke up. It’s not the reason for the breakup, and it didn’t ruin the band, but it’s part of all those tangled-up emotions surrounding our past.
And it’s also something I never forgave myself for leaving unfinished.
“We could see what happens, finish it just for us,” I say. “It’s a great melody.”
Valerie bites her lip, frowning. “Caleb. It’s a love song.”
I clear my throat. “I’m very aware of that.”
“About us.”
“Yup. But we have a little time, and…” I brace myself, resisting the urge to tear my gaze away from hers. “I miss writing with you. This could be our chance to do it again.”
Valerie bites her lip, tucking a stray lock behind her ear. “I miss writing with you too.”
This was the thing that always came easiest to us: the juncture of friendship and music, this thing we both loved. The industry, the media, even our feelings—they complicated all the reasons we started the band in the first place. But maybe I can give her this: a reminder of why we started. A space to be creative. Closure that’s more than bitter memories.
God knows we need it.
“Maybe it’s not a terrible idea…” she says slowly, eyes sparkling. “Okay, Sloane. Let’s see if we have one more song in us.”
I grin, triumphant. “Let me grab my guitar.”
“I have, like, three in here. Come on,” she says, as if deciding something. She grabs me by the wrist and drags me into the room, and damn it if my pulse doesn’t beat a little faster at the urgent press of her fingerprints on my skin. Somehow, after all this time, her touch still sends a thrill through my veins.
But it’s only the ghost of old feelings come to haunt me—and I’ll keep reminding myself this is strictly professional. I can get through one writing session without wanting to shove Valerie up against a wall and kiss her breathless.
Problem is, that’s how the night ended the last time we wrote together.
Shit, I need to get it together.
While Valerie rummages around in her bag, I take a few deep breaths, trying to ground myself the way my therapist taught me.
Okay, so we’re doing this.
I only thought of presenting the idea to Valerie, but I didn’t think of what would happen if she agreed: Us. Alone. In her hotel room. Now.
Writing a love song.
“Text the others—we’ll order in,” she says.
Relief floods through my chest. If we don’t do this alone, it’ll be easier. “You want to invite them to collaborate?”
“No,” she says quickly. “I mean, we’re technically making new music together, even if we have no intent to share it with anyone. It can’t be Glitter Bats music. Label will want it if they ever find out, and that’s not what we’re here to do.”
“Right,” I say. “Okay, so we’ll skip dinner with the others. Want to do room service whenever we get hungry?”
“Perfect. I made a TJ’s run so my little kitchenette is pretty stocked.”
I smile, because some things never change. Valerie might be famous, but she still loves her cheap Trader Joe’s goodies. I mean, she’s not wrong—they have great snacks. I grab the mini chocolate chip cookies and olive oil popcorn from the counter and bring them over to where she’s spread out her guitar and a blank notebook.
On her bed.
How am I supposed to focus when the scent of her is everywhere? She’s always used shampoo that leaves an unmistakable scent of sugar in her wake. Now there’s something new in the mix, warm and citrusy, and the combination is like she spent the day baking lemon bars.
It makes me wonder how her soft skin might taste.
Clearing my throat to banish the thought, I grab the guitar from Valerie’s floor and sink onto the far corner of her bed with my journal, trying to keep enough space between us to chill out but not make the distance obvious.
We’re just writing. Nothing more. It’s hard enough to work together again—I don’t need to make it weird by smelling her, even if she’s intoxicating as hell.
God, if I keep this up, my sweatpants are going to betray my thoughts.
Swallowing thickly, I close my eyes and try to center myself. Instead of thinking about how good Valerie would look naked on the soft white comforter, I try to remember this song. We only really ever had a chorus.
I lightly strum through the chord progressions and look at her as I sing the lines, remembering the words as if we just wrote the song yesterday.
we had so many daydreams just like this
seeing our name in lights from Seattle to Paris
don’t care how far this old Fender goes
no matter where we are, you’re still my home
Valerie doesn’t sing the words, but she hums a low harmony. “You remember it all.”
“Yeah,” I say, tearing my gaze away from hers, trying not to be too overcome. These lyrics have haunted me for six years, this last connection between us that never resolved. Of course I remember every single word of it.
So many sleepless nights have featured this song.
“This really could have been something, I just know it,” she says. She gestures for the guitar, and I hand it over to her. She starts noodling with the scraps of an unfinished verse.
We were working on “Daydreams” for our third album, the one that never existed. A slow, intimate love song isn’t exactly our brand of pop-punk-inspired rock—and honestly the song has more folk vibes than anything else—but this album still would have included plenty of what our fans expected. The band agreed the two of us could include something a little more personal on this one. Valerie and I were finally ready to let the world in on our not-so-secret love story.
Or at least that’s what I thought, until I took it too far and it all fell apart.
“I still haven’t apologized to you for that night,” she says, playing the chord progression over and over, like she’s reaching for a feeling.
“No, please don’t apologize.” I sigh. “We were kids. I was asking you to commit to something you weren’t ready for, and it wasn’t fair.” I can’t help but feel like if I’d just been paying attention, I’d have realized the timing was all off.
She huffs. “It’s not like it was a surprise. We were serious about each other. I was on a high after the concert. And when you proposed…for a moment, I was on top of the world. But then the panic set in.”
My mouth goes dry as the shame comes back to me in full force. The two of us alone in that greenroom after the show, me holding her back while the others went ahead to the hotel. The ringing silence when I asked a question she wouldn’t answer. “It was too much. I scared you away.”
“It’s just…making any plans for my future outside of music scared the hell out of me. There was all this pressure to get a new record out and capitalize on our success, and I couldn’t think about anything else. Instead of telling you how I was feeling, I asked for space.” Her hand stills on the frets, and I think about the phantom ring that might be there if things had turned out differently. That big flashy diamond I’m not even sure she liked, but I spent an unbelievable amount of money on anyway.
The reverberation of the guitar stops, muffled, until there’s nothing but silence between us. Finally, Valerie breaks it. “And we couldn’t continue, not after I hurt you like that. It’s my fault the band fell apart.”
“I thought…” I swallow thickly as the emotions start to stir in my chest again. Trying to clear my head, I resettle on the bed, crossing my legs. “I thought when you wanted to keep our relationship a secret, it meant that you weren’t happy. I was convinced you only stayed with me because of some obligation, an old friendship, a fear of breaking up the band and publicly ruining everything.” I sigh, gathering my nerve. “Don’t get me wrong—I proposed because of how I felt about you. But I think it was also about me trying to hold on to you tighter, instead of really thinking about what it would mean for us. I mean, we were so young. And then when you asked me for some time to think about it, it felt like you were letting me down easy. So I cut and left before my heart could break any more.” I didn’t just lose the person I thought was the love of my life that night. I lost the best friends I’ve ever had.
I broke up the band, not Valerie.
Her eyes widen, and if I didn’t know better I’d think she was holding back tears. “Why didn’t you tell me how you were feeling?”
“Because I was twenty-two and an idiot. That ultimatum was really just self-sabotage.” My shoulders tense as I remember that night, shame flooding my bones. I really said I was done waiting for her to put us first. That if she really wanted me, she had to decide then and there if she was all in.
I gave her a now or never and walked away with empty hands.
All at once, the pain of that moment comes rushing back. The greenroom was dusty, the scents of hair spray, coffee, and sweat permeating the air, but I had so much hope. And then there was the shouting, the tears, the weight in my chest as I walked away from the best thing that ever happened to me.
Because it was always the Glitter Bats. It was always her .
“I wish you’d told me,” Valerie says. “Because then you’d know I didn’t want to keep you a secret out of obligation or regret, but to protect us from the world.”
I freeze. This is news to me. “What do you mean?”
She glances up at me through those long lashes, then stares at the duvet. “You know what fame does, how this industry can be. There was already tension in the band, and the media was getting worse, calling me a loose cannon and a hack…and a slut, after those photos leaked. I was living every day in survival mode. We’d get back from long hours of rehearsal and there my mom would be, waiting in my room, ready to read through all the headlines—good and very bad—and tally the engagement like I was a show pony.”
“Valerie, I…” I can’t believe I didn’t see it back then. She must have been barely holding it together. Her mom, the label, the media—she wrote a song about it, and I still didn’t see. Everyone wanted something from her, and then I added the ultimate pressure. That ring probably felt like a chain.
“But when you and I were together, everything was perfect. Some days, you were the only thing that could make me smile, and all I wanted was to get you alone where I felt safe. If we were alone, no one could touch us. And then you were on one knee with that massive diamond, and after my heart stopped racing, I had this vision of me ruining it and landing us on some list of failed celebrity marriages in ten years. I couldn’t take losing you like that.”
My jaw drops. “I had no idea,” I say as I suddenly realize something. “I was doing what everyone else was doing, wasn’t I? I was telling you how to live your life when you needed space to decide for yourself. Hell, I was practically handling you when I delivered that ultimatum. I’m so sorry I didn’t see it before.”
Valerie gives me a watery smile. “I mean, you poured your heart out and I rejected you, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Besides, we both said vicious things that night.” She sets the guitar down and reaches for my hand, sending warmth across my skin. “And I’m really, really sorry too. I’m sorry I hurt you then, and now.”
I squeeze her hand. “You didn’t hurt me now.”
She groans. “No, don’t lie. I’m sorry for the way I approached you about the reunion. And then…asking you to pretend we’re together? It was so wrong of me, and we really can drop it.”
I thought that’s what I wanted, but when she says it out loud, I really hate the sound. My life might be comfortable, simple, but I forgot how much making my own music—with the Glitter Bats—made me come alive.
I don’t know what that means, but the least I can do is help Valerie.
Suddenly, this feels too important to drop. “Has The Network renewed Epic Theme Song yet?”
She closes her eyes and lets out a long sigh. “No. Wade thinks we’re off to a good start, but we haven’t convinced the higher-ups that my reputation has been redeemed enough to repair the damage from Roxanne dropping out.”
This whole thing is bullshit. The Network expected the cast to do all this free work promoting the show, and now they’re blaming Valerie for its fate. Because fine, after that first night at Jane’s house, I might’ve done some digging into the scandal that brought us all here. Theo Blake is obviously full of it.
And if I understand correctly, Roxanne made a snap judgment without asking Valerie for her side of the story. It was probably to protect herself from the vicious press, so I can’t blame her without knowing more about her situation, but that doesn’t make this Valerie’s fault.
She needs this.
“We’re just going to have to make more headlines,” I say, a little suggestively, just to make her smile.
She does, but she also shakes her head. “This is too much. You shouldn’t.”
“I already told you—I’m offering. Friends help friends save their TV shows.”
Valerie grimaces. “It’s way too much to ask of you. I can’t believe I ever brought it up.”
“It’s fine. We’ll play up the romance, make sure we’re seen out in public. Then when the concert comes around and we break out this duet, everyone will be talking about it. If Valerie Quinn is a trending topic, they won’t be able to deny you another season.”
She looks up to the ceiling, like she’s praying to God or Kurt Cobain, and then she locks those blue eyes onto mine.
“Alright, rock star. Let’s write this song.”